Nicole T. Carr is Associate Vice President for Student Academic Success at the University of South Alabama. In this position she provides university leadership targeting one of the five institutional priorities: student success and access. Her unit encompasses a range of services rounding out students’ academic experience, including academic advising, tutoring, Career Services, and the university Writing Center. Carr has developed and/or supervised a variety of student success initiatives including a wide-scale implementation of learning communities; the development and implementation of the university’s First Year Advising Center; the implementation large scale technology in support of student success; the production of a university-specific first year experience course text and the establishment of common learning objectives for first year courses; a robust peer academic leader program; and the development of the annual South Alabama Conference on Teaching and Learning (now in its 8th year). She has also collaborated extensively with Student Affairs, most notably in designing the university Week of Welcome and instituting an academic Convocation.

Since 2010, Dr. Carr has led the University in improving first year student retention by 13 percentage points, and four year graduation rates by 9 percentage points Persistence from fall to spring for first year students topped 92% for the 2016 freshman cohort. Continued focus on persistence and graduation now involve attendance initiatives, degree milestones, probation advising, and additional engagement with technology in support of success